The central goal of the Department of Pastoral Services at Duke University Medical Center is to identify levels of hope within patients and their families as they face significant health crises, and to nurture this hope as they receive care.

The department’s scope of services is derived from the following objectives:

• Assess the spiritual values and needs of patients and their families, along with their spiritual injuries, in order to provide timely and appropriate pastoral and spiritual interventions.
• Assist patients and families in drawing upon their spiritual resources as an important element in the healing and recovery process.
• Ensure that patients and families have free and ready access to religious practices and rituals that sustain them in situations of uncertainty, distress, and suffering.
• Provide pastoral and spiritual comfort and counsel to patients and families in anticipatory grief and bereavement crises.
• Provide pastoral support to the health care staff in situations of stress or spiritual distress that they encounter in caring for patients and families.
• Assist patients and families in the theological and spiritual aspects of critical decision making, such as completing advance directives or facing end-of-life dilemmas.
• Provide value-added pastoral care that embraces the satisfaction of patients and their families with their total care and treatment in the Duke University Health System.